expressive language,' Heather said, 'beside which English or French or
Chinese is primitive.'
Toby stopped typing, and the response from the other conversant was
dark and churning, black and bile green, clotted with red. 'No,' the
boy said to the screen. The colors became more dour, the rhythms more
vehement. 'No,' Toby repeated. Churning, seething, spiraling reds.
For a third time- 'No.' Jack said, 'What're you saying 'no' to?'
'To what it wants,' Toby replied. 'What does it want?'
'It wants me to let it in, just let it in.'
'Oh, Jesus,' Heather said, and reached for the Off switch again. Jack
stopped her hand as he'd done before.
Her fingers were pale and frigid. 'What's wrong?' he asked, though he
was afraid he knew. The words 'let it in' had jolted him with an
impact almost as great as one of Anson Oliver's bullets. 'Last night,'
Heather said, staring in horror at the screen. 'In a dream.' Maybe
his own hand turned cold. Or maybe she felt him tremble. She
blinked.
'You've had it too, the dream!'
'Just tonight. Woke me.'
'The door,' she said. 'It wants you to find a door in yourself, open
the door and let it in. Jack, damn it, what's going on here, what the
hell's going on?'
He wished he knew. Or maybe he didn't. He was more scared of this
thing than of anyone he'd confronted as a cop. He had killed Anson
Oliver, but he didn't know if he could touch this enemy, didn't know if
it could even be found or seen.
'No,' Toby said to the screen. Falstaff whined and retreated to a
corner, stood there, tense and watchful. 'No. No.' Jack crouched
beside his son.
'Toby, right now you can hear it and me, both of us?'
'Yes.'
'You're not completely under its influence.'
'Only a little.'
'You're ... in between somewhere.'
'Between,' the boy confirmed. 'Do you remember yesterday in the
graveyard?'
'Yes.'
'You remember this thing . . . speaking through you.'
'Yes.'
'What?' Heather asked, surprised. 'What about the graveyard?' On the
screen: undulant black, bursting boils of yellow, seeping spots of
kidney red. 'Jack,' Heather said, angrily, 'you said nothing was wrong
when you went up to the cemetery. You said Toby was daydreaming--just
standing up there daydreaming.'
To Toby, Jack said, 'But you didn't remember anything about the
graveyard right after it happened.'
'No.'
'Remember what?' Heather demanded. 'What the hell was there to
remember?'
'Toby,' Jack said, 'are you able to remember now because . .
